Long time no see! Chuseok was around 3 weeks ago now, so I figure I’ll update on the biggest/coolest thing I did over these last few weeks, which was my short vacation to Jeju Island! This is going to be a very photo-heavy update, so prepare yourselves.
For those who don’t know, Jeju is an island southwest of the Korean peninsula. It’s almost exactly half the size of Long Island, which makes it South Korea’s biggest island by far and is an incredibly popular vacation spot. I was invited by some friends to go for a week, but due to classes I met them later and stayed for 4 full days (arriving in the afternoon on 10/2 and leaving in the evening of 10/7). Jeju was definitely a bucket list travel spot while I was abroad, so I’m really glad I got the chance to go!
We had an Airbnb overlooking the coast on the eastern part of Jeju City, with a small mountain nearby that made the skyline feel very authentically Jeju. From the airport, it took around 20 minutes to get to our Airbnb by taxi. The most inconvenient thing about Jeju, after over a month in Seoul, was the lack of public transit. There were some buses, but taxis and cars are definitely the preferred mode of transportation. I personally do really love a nice long car ride listening to music, but sometimes I found myself missing the ease (and speed) of hopping on a train with my T-Money card. At times it was hard for us to order taxis due to our group being made up of 6 people. However, we did manage to go all over the island thanks to how common taxis were all over the island, even in places that seemed remote.
On my first full day, we went to a brunch restaurant in the city (we had brunch every day though – honestly, we didn’t really have any Korean food while in Jeju because of dietary restrictions and some of us not liking seafood), and afterwards we took a taxi to the Innisfree Jeju House. Innisfree is a Korean skincare brand that uses a lot of ingredients from Jeju, so they had a huge store with a ton of products and even a cafe next to it! I bought a few gifts, and we also took some pictures in the tea fields next to the store and cafe.
The store is also right next to the Osulloc Tea Museum, which we didn’t explore too much, but I once again bought some gifts and also some matcha for myself! Jeju is known for its matcha within Korea, so I figured I had to get some.
After that, we went to a town called Aewol, which was on the coast and had an absolutely beautiful beach that faced west, so we watched the sun set over the ocean (after taking some golden hour photos, of course). The view was absolutely incredible, and it’s definitely something I’ll remember for a long time.
We bought some Jeju souvenirs in Aewol, and one of the shops had a cute dog!! Then had dinner at an Italian restaurant, where I got some pasta with black pork (흑돼지) ragu, which is the closest I got to trying authentic Jeju cuisine… We got a chocolate dessert that I honestly don’t even know how to describe, and it was so good that my friends wanted to take some home with us. I tried using Korean to ask the owner if we could, but I got so lost. It was chaotic but the owners were very nice about it 😅
On my second full day, we once again got brunch, and then we walked to the nearest beach, which was Hamdeok beach. We’d heard that it was a super pretty beach beforehand, but the water was so clear and there was such a pretty mountain across the small bay! I took lots of great photos, yet again.
Next, we took a taxi to one of my favorite places we ended up going to: Snoopy Garden!! As evident by the name, it has indoor exhibition halls and outdoor gardens featuring Peanuts characters and comics. However, we got there only like an hour before closing time that day, so we just went to the cafe and gift shop. Growing up, I loved the Peanuts comics, and to this day my family watches the Charlie Brown Christmas special during the holidays, so needless to say I’m a huge Peanuts fan. I once again bought a lot of gifts, and had a yummy Snoopy carrot cake and Woodstock grapefruit ade from the cafe (not sure what Woodstock has to do with grapefruit, but it was cute regardless).
Then, we went to an Indian restaurant in Jeju City for dinner, which was yet another long drive. The Venti taxi we ordered, though, was driven by a woman who was so sweet – she bought us banana milk from the convenience store when she had to fill up her gas! People in Jeju were actually so, so kind; between the owners of the Italian restaurant we went to on my first day, the convenience store employees I met on my first day who I had a conversation with in Korean, and this taxi driver, we had such great interactions with Jeju locals, which I was so grateful for. I kind of expected locals to be more annoyed at tourists, but I was glad that I didn’t really get that vibe!
The next day, we went to another brunch restaurant (shocker), one that we’d been wanting to go to for a while called Elephant Fig, and it did not disappoint! After brunch, we split up since some of us wanted to go back to Snoopy Garden and get the full experience. On our way over, we stopped at an adorable cafe called Cafe the Container, which I was shocked to find was built as an actual shopping basket!! The cafe let you pick fresh green tangerines – Jeju is known for its tangerines most of all, so we got tangerine lattes which were really good! The seating was all underneath the main shopping basket part of the store, so they had a pulley system to deliver you your drinks, and the cafe also had cute hats and outdoor seating by the tangerine groves to take even more photos at.
Then, we finally got the full Snoopy Garden exhibition experience, which I was very excited about… I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.
On our last full day, we were pretty tired, so we basically had brunch for dinner, which was fine by me. We went back to Aewol to do some more souvenir shopping, and we sat at a beachside bar for a bit, where I got a piña colada (virgin since I wasn’t in the mood to actually drink haha). That was pretty much all we did that day since it was rainy, though, and other than sitting at a cafe after we checked out from our Airbnb the next day, that sums up the trip!
Overall, Jeju was a ton of fun, and if you’re ever spending more than a week or two in South Korea, I would definitely recommend visiting!! I’m very grateful to my friends for doing all the research on what to do, though, because I was very much following their lead most of the time when it came to what we would be seeing. Hopefully if anyone reading this does end up going to Jeju, you can get some ideas! (If that even applies to anyone haha)
I did miss some class to go on this trip, but we had 2 holidays the week that I went, so I didn’t end up falling too far behind in most of my classes. A good thing, too, since I have midterms the week after next…
Anyways, until next time!